I’ve discussed the thinking behind the list in previous posts. The Vanguard can pull off a devastating alpha strike, and the deployment, and tactical flexibility it gives you is fantastic.

Game 1

Game one was against an unusual Inquisitorial list. Bunch of Scions in Taurox, a couple of squads of mixed henchmen with priests, and 3 Vendettas. I won this one reasonably handily. The big learning point here was how hard a mixed group of henchmen (Arco Flagellants, Crusaders with a priest) are. On turn one I dropped down a squad of vanguard, fully expecting to wipe out the henchmen … only to bounce off having caused minimal damage.

The point is, despite being tooled out, Vanguard are not that hard! They do bounce off anything that is a serious assault unit, especially if they are buffed in any way (FNP, Invis, rerolls etc). They are not survivable enough, nor do they throw enough attacks, to be really scary.

Game 2

This was against a horrible traitor guard list, with 90 plague zombies (fearless and objective secured), a smattering of demons (including Belakor), and some artillery –protected by a void shield generator. His army filled his whole deployment zone. I was really scratching my head with this one. One option would be to simply hold up the zombies with a Vanguard squad, but his HQ had a special rule that allowed his artillery to shell untis locked in combat, even if it killed his own zombies!

So I played it very cagey, keeping most of my army off for as long as possible. I brought enough on to keep even on maelstrom, and in the last turn, managed to kill his warlord (one of the tertiary objectives) and make a 4” run move to contest the relic for a very narrow win.

Learning point in this one was the flexibility of the army – when faced with overwhelming fire power, not to mention board presence, I can hold my army off the board, and come in when I need to, focusing entirely on the mission.

Game 3

Another tough game. A kill points game against a Demon army that had a Chaos Knight, a Plague Drone star, a screamer star, Fateweaver, and 2 squads of nurgling! I managed to hold it to a 6-5 loss which I was delighted with. Another game of running away, holding my army off the table, and playing the mission

Again, it was the flexibility of the army that “won” me this game.

Game 4

Against an orc list. Bike star with all the fixing’s, a Stompa, and some bits and bobs, behind a void shield generator.

I thought I had this. The plan was to kill the bikes, cutting down his mobility, ignore the Stompa (it’s essentially unkillable), and wipe up the rest of his army as best I could. It was a reasonable plan, but I didn’t commit to it sufficiently. I only brought down 2 of the vanguard squads to deal with the bike star – I should have used all three. I underestimated how hard the star was (forgot about the FNP), and the 2 Vangaurd squads bounced off. To be fair, losing one whole squad to overwatch didn’t help! I conceded at the end of turn 3. I don’t like blaming “bad dice” but my opponent felt obliged to buy me a beer, my dice were so bad!

Again, Vanguard are not a super hard assault units. They’re fine against shooty stuff, and similar “make pretend” assault units, but against a serious no kidding assault unit, they're lacking. Their strength is not how hard they are, but how flexible they are in the formation.

Game 5

Against Dark Eldar…..which sounds like it would be easy …. But (from memory) 7 venoms full of warriors, put out a horrible volume of fire against a largely foot based army, and the 2 units of Grotesques are a pretty substantial CC threat. Oh, and they were all hiding behind a Void Shield Generator.

Long story short, my priority was to try and kill all the vehicles ASAP in close combat, to cut down his mobility. I was largely successful, helped by the fact that he had bunched them all up around the Void Shield Generator. In turn 4, one of his raiders had survived, and was zooming towards the key objective with 3 Grotesques on board. I was holding it with an Ob Sec drop pod, and two 5 man tac squads. Frankly, I fancied my chances of holding the objective for a couple of turns, but we had lost track of time, and the game ended with me holding the objective with the Ob Sec units.

This was an unsatisfactory end to what was a great game. I felt obliged to buy my opponent a beer, because I felt bad about how things had ended. We could have finished on time if we had been more focused, but, we both agreed that if we had been rushing all game, we would not have had as much fun.

Game 6

Against another Orc list. Very similar to the first one (i.e. an un-killable Stompa), but replacing the bike star with a green tide – one unit of 100 Orcs! Tactics here were pretty easy – use the vanguard to pin the big boyz mob in his deployment zone, and try and lock the Stompa up with little units, stopping it doing anything.

Everything went to plan. I assaulted the mob from both ends forcing him to consolidate towards both combats, stringing out his unit, stopping the power claws getting into combat. They eventually ground me down, but by then it was too late. I also manged to hold up the Stompa, sacrificing 2 tac squads and an assault squad in the process. In the end it came down to whether his stompa could make a 9” charge …. it couldn’t. Win to me, although a narrow one.

So I went 4-0-2 in the Championship, coming 84th out of 295 people. Very pleased with that.

2 comments:

Good report EYIG! It's a good score for a first try at such a competitive event as LVO. I must say I'm thrilled that someone did as good in this tournament with a Raven Guard list - I play Raptors/Raven Guard and it gives me hope to win some games against the top tier list out there! I'm quite happy with some of the conclusions you came up with, mainly the flexibility of the list. That is exactly how I envision the Raven/Raptor's way of making war. I have a couple of points I'd like to share as food for thought:

- Reserves manipulation: how much did you miss it? It looks like the Reserve rolls were going well for you at LVO, but is it something you would consider in a future iteration of the list? Of course, with the kill teams, you already get a pretty good control of where and when to strike...

- Vanguard Vets: have you considered running two squads of 10 instead of three squad of 7? It probably won't give you the extra ooomph! needed to crack a full dedicated CC unit, but it could give you 4 units to harrass/tie-up shooty or scoring units. In other words - do you think that combat squads of Vanguard could be more usefull and maybe help you save some points by trimming the gear on the Vets a little?

- Devastator: this one is bugging me a little. I know points are scarce when building a competitive list, but don't you think that a couple of heavy weapon on the Dev squad could help you crack transports and Void Shield Gens?

- Locator beacon: knowing that they need to be on the table at the start of your turn to be of use, don't you think you have a lot of points invested in those that will go to waste (mostly) if you go first and alpha strike with the Vanguards? I understand your concern regarding precision drop, but this seems like overkill knowing you have the scout squads on top of those to guide you guys in.

JP.....mate, you need to "hold that thought" ... some of you're suggestions are exactly where I'm going. I'm just back from another tourney, using a variation of the list. More posts incoming. Let's have the conversation after them. I really appreciate your interest.